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CBC, Writers and Co.: Brazil Inside Out radio series celebrates renaissance of Brazil

CBC Writers & Company program describes varied life of massive country through the eyes of artists, writers and film-makers

A street painting in the Avenida Paulista neighbourhood of Sao Paulo. (CBC Photo)

By Henry StancuStaff Reporter

Fri., April 18, 2014

Carnival in Rio, the stacked-fruit hat of Carmen Miranda swaying to a samba beat, soccer superstar Pele and the statue of Christ the Redeemer with outstretched arms overlooking Rio de Janeiro: These are just some of the things that may come to mind when people think of Brazil.

For a country described as “the world’s most exciting nation” by The Financial Times, Brazil is something of a mystery. It’s a land that’s as big as America, has an economy that rivals that of the U.K., and, unlike the rest of Latin America, speaks Portuguese, not Spanish.

A five-part series launched last Sunday, on CBC Radio One’s Writers & Company, “Brazil Inside Out” explores this vast, turbulent and exotic nation.

Brazil is hosting the 2014 World Cup of soccer (or football, as most of the rest of the world calls it), the 2016 Olympics.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the military coup that started the dictatorship that ruled Brazil brutally for two decades.

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This Sunday’s second installment of the CBC radio series focuses on film director, producer and writer José Padilha, whose 2014 remake of RoboCop hit theatres around the globe in Februrary. Born in Rio, Padilha’s work includes the gritty Brazilian crime dramas Elite Squad and Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within.

His films have depicted the world of crime, corruption and their tragic social consequences. Padilha’s 2002 debut Bus 174 is a documentary about the kidnapping of a busload of people, which was viewed on live television across Brazil right up to its sad conclusion when a police officer, aiming to kill the abductor, shot an innocent woman dead.

The opening episode in the CBC series featured a conversation with Ana Maria Machado, who, while in exile during the dictatorship, wrote books for adults and children. Her writing dealt with themes that are taboo in Brazil, such as the country’s history of slavery.

Also interviewed was Sergio Rodrigues, a Rio-based sports journalist, whose writings connect the world of soccer and Brazil’s political history.

To make the series, its host Eleanor Wachtel spent two weeks in March interviewing some of Brazil’s most popular writers and artists.

“It’s a place that has interested me for a long time and I was looking for an occasion that made it more pressing in people’s consciousness,” said Wachtel. “It wasn’t a country I knew much about and that was motivation for wanting to go and bring back a series.

“For the last 10 years, people have been talking about the BRIC countries —Brazil, Russia, India and China — as the up and coming economies. Brazil has been in the news as an economic powerhouse that has bounced back from the 2008-2009 financial meltdown very quickly.

“In anticipation of the World Cup and the Olympics in two years, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a closer look at the country through its writers, artists and filmmakers.”

Many of the works created are published in English and most of these auteurs have worked as journalists at home and abroad. Those featured in the CBC series come from various regions of the country.

“Brazilians have a lot of regional differences, but, for whatever reason, they’ve chosen to remain as one country,” Wachtel said. “They remain together as a very big, diverse, complex, and sometimes problematic, country.

There has recently been a growing public resentment towards the government, peaking last summer when thousands rioted in Rio over an announced increase in bus fares.

“It reflected a discontent with the level of financial commitment to social services, infrastructure and especially education. That’s something people mentioned over and over. It’s such a primary problem at the core of violence,” said Wachtel.

“There have been some very positive signs, but, in the last year, the economy has slowed down and there’s also been a greater sense of awareness with money being spent on the World Cup, there is money to be spent on something and why isn’t it being spent on improving services and education.”

The “Brazil Inside and Out” series explores this emerging nation through the new perspectives and “untold stories” of the creative Bazilians highlighted each week.

Upcoming programs:

April 27: Novelist Bernardo Carvalho (Sao Paulo) takes readers on a journey among the indigenous people of Brazil’s heartland, investigating the mysterious death of a young anthropologist in the Amazon. Part fiction and autobiography, it is Brazil’s version of the vision set out in Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness.

Writer, director and performer Roberta Estrela D’Alva (Sao Paulo) focuses on the hip-hop culture of the favelas to captures the energy of the streets in her work.

May 4: Luis Fernando Verissimo (Porto Alegre), satirizes the politics and culture of the southernmost region of Brazil, Rio Grande do Sul, in his popular newspaper columns and his charming “literary mysteries.”

Michel Laub (Sao Paulo) is among a younger generation of Brazilian writers. His novel Diary of a Fall deals with intolerance by drawing from his own experience of growing up in Porto Alegre’s Jewish community.

Brazil Inside Out airs on Writers & Company Sun., April 20, 27, May 4 and 11.

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